Sofia protesters to stage jogging demonstration

Bulgarians plan to stage a fresh rally in the capital Sofia Saturday to demand the resignation of the country’s government for a 37th day in a row. On Saturday, July 20, the DANSwithme evening rally will include mass jogging, organized by the Greens party. It will start at 7 pm. The gathering point is the sidewalk across the headquarters of the Central Bank, BNB, near Independence square, reported the Bulgarian /Sofia/ news agency today. The Sofia City Hall has issued a permit for the event and the police have been assigned the task to provide security for it and redirect traffic. The jogging will pass through “Tsar Liberator” boulevard, “Vasil Levski” boulevard, “Oborishte” street, the north side of the “Alexander Nevsky” cathedral, “Rakovski” street, back to “Tsar Liberator” boulevard. In the second largest city of Plovdiv there will be a bike procession in protest against the government. The series of the peaceful, but mass and relentless anti-government protests in Bulgaria was triggered by the scandalous appointment of media mogul Delyan Peevski as Chair of the State Agency for National Security (DANS). Although the appointment was revoked, the people went on to demand that the Socialist-endorsed cabinet of Prime Minister, Plamen Oresharski, resign collectively over ties with oligarchs. Despite the protests, the Bulgarian Parliament elected Friday another controversial individual, Vladimir Pisanchev, to lead DANS. A much smaller rally in support of the cabinet Oresharski is held every evening as well in the park of the National Palace of Culture.